I started to teach my mutt the commands “crawl” and “go long” this week. Noticed I said started teaching him these things. While teaching my mutt, I have learned it is best to teach in very, very basic steps. By breaking the training into the simplest steps possible, my mutt begins to understand. I am …
Lindsay Stordahl
I come from a family of dog lovers – my mom, dad and two brothers are all crazy about dogs like me. But while visiting my family last weekend, I realized that nondoglovers put up with a lot from their family members who do love dogs. Take my grandma, for example, a nondoglover who must …
It must’ve taken Ace 100 repetitions to understand bang (play dead), but he finally has it down, pretty much. Seriously, how hard is it to just lie on your side? I don’t know how I could’ve made it any easier for the mutt, but he was slow to pick this one up. I taught him …
I make the mistake of giving my mutt a command more than once. For example, I tell him to sit more than once if he doesn’t do it right away. It’s usually something like, “Sit…SIT!” And then he sits. What I am doing is training him to sit on the second (or third) command, which …
Today was my cat Scout’s third birthday. I spend so much time and energy worrying about Ace that Scout doesn’t always get the attention he needs.
Today is July 1 and the start of my new 30-day challenge. I am taking the suggestions of others and plan on teaching my mutt five new tricks in 30 days. He knows all the basics, plus a few fun ones like speak and high-five, and more useful commands such as drop, jump and climb …
Newfoundlands just might be the most gentle dogs there are. Before I started my pet sitting and dog running business, I used to pet sit for a Newfoundland named Wallee. Wallee (pictured below, left) didn’t realize his size and liked to cuddle up next to me on the couch with his head in my lap. …
Ace did something bad last night. He bit my boyfriend in the face. This made me realize I cannot tolerate any aggressive behavior from my dog. The bite was a small puncture wound on the side of Josh’s nose, an inch or so below his eye. A small puncture wound, yes, but the nip was …
Have you ever thought about providing a temporary foster home for a future service dog? Dozens of organizations across the country train service dogs to help assist people with various disabilities. There is a list here showing most of the service dog schools in the United States. Many states have more than one school. This sounds …
OK, I’d heard this so many times that I believed it: Female dog urine kills the grass and male dog urine does not. I actually thought about this today and realized this is absolutely ridiculous. So I decided to do some research and see whether this is true or not. Someone has to stand up …